Systems and methods herein generally relate to the automatic configuration settings for networked printing device, and more particularly to the automatic configuration of network devices in remote managed print service applications utilizing groups of historical device data.
Various devices that are linked to a network can include a network management station or device management application (DMA) and a plurality of target devices, which may be, for example, printers, plotters, digital printer, fax machines, computer workstations, file and print servers and/or networking resources and devices; such as, repeaters, switches, routers, routers hubs, concentrators, nodes, and the like. DMA and each of the target devices has a network interface and is configured to communicate with network using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).
The device management application accesses the tethered devices to obtain configuration information of the target devices. The configuration information returned to the DMA includes, for example, an IP address of the target device, parameter names and associated values for each protocol, and vendor/manufacturer and model information of the target devices. Once the IP address is obtained, the DMA sets the IP address, parameter names and associated values for each protocol, to create a software object for the device in a network agent. When the device software object is successfully created, the created object is used to obtain Vendor, Model, and Unique ID from the target devices to be stored at DMA or in database.
Once the vendor, model information, and unique ID are obtained from the device software object, the DMA updates the database with information received from the target devices. The information is used to monitor the target devices for alarm conditions, track depletion of resources, maintain a running account of resources such as print media and the like at the target device, and implement a billing strategy for the device.
The same device configuration settings can be used for a homogenous network of devices; however, such an arrangement is not tailored to fit all installations and does not allow for device differences in customer environments. The difference in devices at the customer environments causes a specific set of device configuration settings to work for some devices, but not for others. The differences in devices occur because device configurations are often maintained in different ways by different companies and within private management information databases (MIBs).